5 korrents from this piece
Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.
Their wordsThe counterargument here — which I made in 2020 and which a number of economists made in response to JFV’s post — is that it’s better to study something knowable than to study something unknowable, even if the knowable things are less important.
Their wordsHistory only happens once, so our ability to make a science out of one-time historical events like economic development is very limited.
Their wordsUnless and until AI gets smart enough to study human society from a bird’s-eye view, I think we should be humble about how much we expect development economists to be able to contribute to developing countries’ growth policies in real time.
Their wordsBut there is no science of development, and it’s not clear there ever will be.
Their wordsSo we should be careful that exhortations for development economists to focus on the Big Questions don’t pressure them to pretend that they have the Big Answers.